Hope my wife doesn't mind, but I spent nine hours at Naga-Waukee Park yesterday with an older woman. We were there to hear performers on the last day of two day
Waukesha BluesFest, a
Waukesha Noon Rotary fundraising event. Besides the music, my mother-in-law and I enjoyed jambalaya, crawfish bisque, blackened catfish and barbequed ribs.
We washed the spicy food down with several of the many interesting beers offered and the music was washed down with rain. The rain came sometime after the 6:00 p.m. act,
Shemekia Copeland, and stayed long enough to wet the grass but not make
muddy waters. The sturdy tent holding close to 2000 chairs could have withstood a much greater storm but didn't even need the side curtains closed for this one.
The seven groups seemed to progress in quality up to headliner,
Mavis Staples. I enjoyed them all, but my favorite was
Ollabelle, an interesting New York quintet with two agreeable female singers who play accoustic and electric guitars and mandolin. Ollabelle is also one of Mavis' favorites and she's godmother to one of the female singers.
The sparse crowd for the first Waukesha BluesFest became a running joke for many of the bands so I gave it some thought. Obviously the $40.00 or so per day ticket price is the first thing to look at. As a fundraiser wanting to showcase quality acts it's understandable, but tickets should be low enough to fill the seats until it's well established. Besides, even if Waukesha was a big blues area, it would be hard to find another venue with prices as high. As a matter of fact there's a fun-sounding music, barbeque and fun festival coming up Sept. 28th through 30th at
Menomonee Falls Village Park. The three day
free "
Big Pig Gig" offers 23 musical acts on three stages versus fourteen on one during BluesFest's two days.
Other things to look at would be the accompanying vendors or attractions. I saw the favorable crowd at the
2007 Waukesha Car Show in the Park today and wondered why a bike or car show couldn't be combined with blues music. Also, it was nice to have fourteen art vendors with the artists present but I saw the same thing for free during last week's art crawl.
On the happy side of the blues, with at most two hundred people in attendance, there was no waiting for anything and we could sit anywhere, taking up as many chairs as we needed. What the small crowd lacked in numbers it made up in enthusiasm and I was glad to be part of it, me and mom-in-law. Our quality time together.
